Issue 57 - Daleks, dogs, drink

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Daleks, dogs, drink

I am standing at the edge of a paddock, surrounded by people. In front of me a man in green hunting costume is grappling with a large fox hound.

Other huntsmen in red are running around in panic in the sun, after hunting dogs that having been deprived of foxes for some time now, have gone berserk and are in hot pursuit of every burger and sausage van in the vicinity. And there are a lot. It's like Johnnie Walker starring in a horror film.

Then two cars enter the paddock, steering to avoid the hounds. And – and I'm really not making this up - they're both being driven by gorillas, one with a bra on.

I haven't had a drink, but I need one so I look for a bar. Then through the sun haze and pandemonium I see it – a five metre inflatable bottle of Cock O' The North Single Malt Whisky Liqueur floating in the clear blue sky.

Good golly, what a strange summer it's been, and a whisky-related one, too. Even leaving aside the football World Cup, which provided any number of excuses to reach for the bottle, summer 2006 has been most unsettling.

There was the incident above, for instance, which took place at the Royal Norfolk Show, which is a sort of young farmers' convention mixed with an agricultural car boot sale.

Then there were the daleks up at Holt on the North Norfolk coast. Hundreds of us turned out for what was billed to be the biggest gathering of Earth's greatest enemies in any one place. More than 58 would win a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the biggest ga...